


Swept Off Your Feet

by Librarian_Alexandria



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Human, Art Class AU, Artist Nico di Angelo, First Dates, First Kiss, Fluff, Getting Together, M/M, Minor Injuries, Minor Piper Mclean/Reyna Avila Ramírez-Arellano - Freeform, Oblivious Percy Jackson, One Shot, Piper McLean is a Good Friend, Short & Sweet, all i write is fluff i swear, and i got wildly different answers, and maybe its not, but it sure is cute, i had to crowd source how badly bee stings hurt from my friends, its a little bit stupid but hey, its just a bee sting though, so maybe its realistic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-08
Updated: 2020-08-08
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:55:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25789198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Librarian_Alexandria/pseuds/Librarian_Alexandria
Summary: Percy has the perfect way to get closer to his crush: art class field trip to a botanical garden. Only problem? Nico just got stung by a bee, which kind of derails everything.In a good way.
Relationships: Nico di Angelo/Percy Jackson
Comments: 1
Kudos: 80





	Swept Off Your Feet

Percy may or may not have been crushing on the cute guy from his art class but it wasn’t like he was going to do anything about it. He would just stare quietly at him from across the room and occasionally make an absolute fool of himself when cute art class guy would ask him if he had an extra pencil sharpener or something.   
Piper loved relaying all those soul-crushingly embarrassing moments for the rest of his friends who weren’t in art class. 

And as if being attractive wasn’t enough, he was also extremely talented in basically every single thing he tried, painting to sculpting to even calligraphy for crying out loud. Once, an afternoon Percy was never, ever going to let himself forget, both he and Nico (a name he had learned only because cute art guy’s friends had called him that when dragging him away from his projects) had stayed late working on their paintings due the next day and had even engaged in light small talk, which Percy didn’t shut up about for at least three weeks. 

But, halfway through the second semester of just pining from afar, he and Piper planned the perfect approach.   
In a blend of cultural exploration and drawing practice, their class was taking a day trip to a botanical garden, and they had exactly two hours of free roam that included a cafe and the very beautiful plants. And, like a perfect cherry on top, the small worksheet they’d been given in order to actually excuse just frolicking around a park all day was to be done in pairs. In pairs! This was basically divine intervention telling him to go for it. 

He and Piper had gotten a solid start by sitting across the aisle from him and his usual partner, a tall girl that Piper made sappy lesbian eyes at all day, and sharing a tin of Pringle’s with during the bus ride. Then, when they got there, Piper’s totally not self-indulgent plan to swoop in and ask Reyna to be her partner left Nico totally open for Percy.   
If only he could stop being a massive idiot. 

“This one says we need to find two sculptures that can best be used as examples for dynamic and static composition.”   
“Didn’t we already do that one?” Percy was trying very hard to be interested in actual terminology but if he was honest, actual art history and dissection or whatever it was gave him a headache.   
Nico’s face changed into an expression Percy couldn’t quite read, but it was probably annoyance.   
“We did abstract and representational.”   
“Oh.”

Once the worksheet, which Percy wanted to burn, was finished they were allowed to use the free time for practice, not quite the free-roaming, cute-coffee-date time yet but definitely better than the awkward sculpture hunt.   
Percy would admit that his drawing skills could use some polishing, specifically the part where things looked real. Nico, on the other hand, seemed to just pour whatever was in front of him onto his sketchbook, no problem. He was currently looking for different flowers so he could practice his shading and colours, and Percy just told him he’d work on a drawing of a tree of something. He was lying. He just wanted to watch Nico draw. 

He looked even cuter, if possible, while drawing. He was so concentrated, chewing on his lower lip, occasionally scrunching up his face to get a perfect line, and each time he finished a flower, he’d scoot over and find a new one, with the sweetest, satisfied smile on his face, and-   
“Ow! Fuck!”   
Percy was pulled from his maybe creepy staring by Nico’s yelp and the clatter of his pencils all scattering around as he sprang backward.   
“What happened? Are you okay?”   
Nico was sitting down again, one bare foot (something about feeling nature) placed on his opposite leg.   
“Stood on a bee,” he said, sounding both in pain and very, very embarrassed. It was almost humanizing.   
It was like someone switched off his compassion skills and turned him into an awkward asshole, but things usually didn’t go his way.   
“Well, you should be wearing shoes,” Percy said, immediately feeling bad when Nico shot him a glare from the ground.   
“You don’t think I know that, smartass?”   
“Right, sorry, you’re not like, allergic or anything are you?” He asked, getting over himself and stepping closer.   
Nico was looking back at his foot again.   
“No, I mean, I’m pretty sure I’m not, but I’ll have to wait by the bus I think, I’m not planning on hopping everywhere,” he rambled.   
“No!” Percy cut in. Nico stared at him, clearly confused.   
“Uh, I mean, you shouldn’t have to sit out just because of a bee sting.”   
Here goes nothing.   
“I’ll carry you.”   
Nico raised his brows.   
“You’re not serious,” he said, and Percy’s face probably did that thing Annabeth always teased him about, whenever someone dared him, or bet he couldn’t do something. She called it his hubris face.   
“Hey!”   
Nico was now scooped up bridal style in his arms, and despite the gnawing nervousness currently eating at his stomach, he grinned down at Nico, who looked… surprised, but there was something else in his eyes that made Percy a little bit giddy.   
“Where to?” he asked, breaking the brief silence. Nico was turning slightly red.   
“Uh, there’s a flower bed over there,” he gestured vaguely to the left, “where I could just scoot around and draw some more?”   
Percy just nodded, then crouched down to let Nico pick up his sketchbook and pencils. He realized with a mental facepalm that he probably should have just put Nico down while he got his stuff, but Nico just stayed right where he was and placed his things on his lap.   
The short walk to the other patch of plants was both awkward and amazing and Percy hated it. 

While he drew, Nico would shoot him little smiles, and every once in awhile he’d pass his sketchbook to Percy, pointing out the real flower and showing him the stylized doodles he would illustrate alongside the realistic ones. They were mainly silent, unless Nico was explaining something or Percy was spewing his usual repetitive praise that he always felt was too superficial but made Nico smile and look at the ground, usually blushing, just a bit. 

“It’s 12 already.”   
Nico looked up from the orchid he was shading.   
“Already?”   
“Yeah,” Percy said, pushing himself on to say, “I can carry you to the cafe for some coffee if you want?”   
Before promptly caving and adding, “Pipers meeting me there and she’ll probably bring Reyna.”   
That was a lie. He’d have to text her while Nico finished his last drawing.   
Nico just nodded, looking a little crestfallen. Why was that? Did he not like Piper? 

Percy: Piper you better drag Reyna to that cafe like right now I accidentally told Nico you guys would be there   
Piper: …   
Piper: Dumbass   
Percy: thank youuuu

Thank god, Piper and Reyna were there when they arrived, sitting at a corner booth.   
“Scoot Pipes,” Percy said, setting Nico down on the bench.   
The girls exchanged looks.   
“He stood on a bee,” Percy said lamely while Nico looked down at his, no longer bare, feet.   
“And you decided instead of just supporting his side and letting him hop you’d sweep him off his feet in a literal sense?” Piper said, earning a snort from Reyna. Percy kicked her under the table. 

Reyna was surprisingly talkative, as was Nico. They seemed to egg each other on, occasionally rambling about an inside joke for a good five minutes, and Piper would consistently push the conversation forward if it started to die down. It was like her secret power. When they eventually walked back to the bus, Nico was walking again, with a slight limp. Percy and Piper walked slightly behind the other two. Piper elbowed him in the ribs and whispered “Get it, Jackson” and he shot her a glance he hoped would intimidate her. It didn’t.   
“Don’t act so pissy, everything went how you wanted it,” she said.   
“He got stung by a bee, Piper.”   
She shrugged.   
“And you got to play savior. Win-win.”   
“I don’t think you know what win-win means.” 

The bus ride home was considerably more fun, since they pushed their way to the back and sat on the single four-person seat, passing snacks and teasing each other about various things that had happened while they were out. It was fun, and Percy was even getting to know Reyna better, and the tension between the two girls was both pitiful and hilarious. 

It was around 4 when they arrived back at the school, and while they were grabbing their bags, Piper nudged him again and whispered, “I’m doing you a solid Perce, you owe me,” and practically grabbed Reyna on the way out, leaving Percy and Nico alone in the art room.   
“We should hang out more.”   
Percy almost thought he imagined it.   
“Uh, I, um, yes, yeah I’d uh, I’d like that,” he managed to splutter out. Nico was next to him now.   
“Thanks for carrying me, again, sorry about that,” he said softly.   
“Don’t apologize, it’s not your fault.”   
Nico laughed.   
“I mean, it was a little,” he said.   
Nico was now very, very close to him. Percy turned, his bag on his back, and Nico was just… right in front of him. He’d never been this close before. Percy could see he had the slightest hint of freckles on his cheeks.   
“You didn’t mind being carried, right? I didn’t really ask, and I-“   
Nico rolled his eyes.   
“It’s fine, really, it was… nice of you.”   
“You said we should hang out more? Like with Reyna and Piper?”   
Nico rolled his eyes again, this time letting out a huff of breath.   
“Those two? God, you could cut the sexual tension with a knife.”   
Percy snickered.   
“I was thinking more… just us two,” Nico continued, looking down at his shoes, that telltale blush creeping back over his face. God, he was adorable.   
Nico was suddenly looking back up at him, mouth slightly open and quirked in a tiny, disbelieving smile.   
Oh shit. He said that out loud, didn’t he.   
“Uh- shit, I mean-“   
“You’re pretty cute yourself,” Nico shot back, his tone was confident but his bright red face gave him away entirely. Percy couldn’t judge though, his face could have cooked an egg with how hot it felt.   
Nico, somehow, stepped even closer.   
“Was today supposed to be like, a date?” He asked, faltering a bit at the end. All Percy could do was gulp and nod. Nico’s fingers brushed against his wrist, and then they were holding hands. And then Nico was even closer. And then Nico was pulling him down and leaning up and then there were chapped lips against his and his hands were on Nico’s cheeks and dear god he was going to faint, wasn’t he?   
Nico pulled back, still blushing, still with Percy’s hands cupping his face.   
“I should probably walk you home. Help you with your foot and all,” he said, feeling like he could probably fly if he tried.   
Nico looked just as ecstatic.   
“Absolutely. I might even need to be carried,” he said, grinning.   
This was so much better than staring at him from across the classroom.

**Author's Note:**

> so this was a stupid lil one shot i wrote based on a prompt mixed with my own stories (yes im basically Piper in this story but without the cute couple as my friends: i.e. im a disaster lesbian who crushed hard on my art classmate and tried to turn our field trip to a botanical garden/sculpture exibit/church tour in belgium into a date but alas i failed miserably)   
> Also i got very different answers on if you can walk with a bee sting on your foot varying from "literally didnt notice it after ten minutes"to "i was out of action for like two full days" so i just kind of winged it (i havent been stung by a bee in so long??)
> 
> Prompt: Our art class is going to botanical gardens to draw from nature but you got stung by a bee and I’m carrying you around to find the flowers you want to draw


End file.
